There was an interesting sounding programme on Radio 4 last week called The Report. The programme was billed as
The sacking of the government’s former chief drugs adviser caused outrage in some quarters of the scientific community. Professor David Nutt had criticised the government’s decision to reclassify cannabis from class C to class B. James Silver investigates the causes of the row and asks if the government’s cannabis classification policy is in disarray.
You can listen to the programme for a few more days on the BBC i-player (30 mins)
However, hopes that we might get a real bit of factual investigative reporting were dashed in the opening remarks which, after mentioning almost in passing that five other members had resigned in protest posed the question:
Has professor Nutt sent mixed messaged as a result of stressing the dangers of alcohol and tobacco?
Sadly then, right from the start the programme had laid out its stall. What we were to get wasn’t going to be the promised look at the future of the government’s drugs policy, or a real investigation into the relative dangers of cannabis compared to other drugs, instead the programme had an entirely different agenda to the one billed.
At the start there were the traditional snippets of what the programme is going to be about and first up was a vox pop from Robin Murray (although he wasn’t credited) who warned that
The problem, I think that David Nutt has got into is not that he’s not convinced the population that smoking tobacco and alcohol is dangerous, he’s convinced the population that smoking cannabis is entirely safe.
This was followed by the announcer saying
We find out why the former chief advisor thinks the law on cannabis should be relaxed.
This, of course, is not why Prof Nutt was sacked, nor what real law reform is all about. Without looking properly at the issues, legalisation is yet again presented as a “relaxing” of the law, rather than the replacement of a failed mess with workable laws designed to properly control and regulated an enormous trade.
Professor Nutt was then featured speaking in favour of Dutch style cannabis coffee-shops in the UK, underlining the fact that he apparently wants “young people” to be able to get hold of an intoxicant which is safer than alcohol. So right from the start the programme has painted Prof Nutt as wanting kids to use cannabis and of dismissing the claimed dangers.
Then the announcer told how they would “report” on the “potent strains” of “home grown” cannabis now “flooding” the market, with a vox pop stating how someone he knew had had a smoke after not smoking for some years and was unable to function for three days
This stuff is so strong, you have no idea
And so the programme proper gets under way by reporting on David Nutt’s recent talk at Kings College, London entitled “An audience with Prof Nutt”, which the programme described as “more show business than science” at times. It described how David Nutt had “morphed into a martyr” and how the Chair gave him the “gentlest of interrogations” and how “one writer” has talked about “The cult of Nutt”. That writer, incidentally, is Brendan O’Neill who wrote in “Spiked”
Yes, the Cult of Nutt, that curious combination of pro-dope campaigners and defenders of science, was out in force.
Download an MP3 recording of the event here – the quality is a bit rough but you can decide for yourself.
As if to labour the point, the announcer pointed to the 27,000 people on Facebook and nearly 7000 more on the Downing Street website, it’s fair to say the professor has “legions of support, some of which were at the meeting”. A couple of David Nutt supporters were interviewed and then am “unreported” exchange was featured: A woman asked if it would make more sense to legalise drugs and to use the money saved to get people off drugs. David Nutt was then featured replying to this question
you’re absolutely right, a lot of the drug harms are caused by them being illegal and being run by criminal gangs.
and
What we do need is a working group, maybe a Royal Comission to really explore that question because there’s a lot behind it.
The programme points out that is the kind of answer that would have had his “former bosses” at the Home Office shaking their heads. They then had another interview with David Nutt about his views on “decriminalisation”. Prof Nutt states how there are precedents in countries such as Portugal where this approach has worked. He described how law reform could address many of the issues we now face with illegal drugs. The interviewer “pressed” him on the issue of decriminalisation and prof Nutt gave a clear answer to the effect that he did indeed support such a move.
This, of course is all after his sacking and not views he expressed whilst in office, this is addressed by the interviewer who said that
people would go”You see? He had a pro decriminalisation agenda all along”
David stated how he has never had “an agenda” and how he has only ever been guided by the scientific evidence. The interviewer then accused him of “believing” in decriminalisation. David Nutt refuted this by saying we should look at it because it works.
So there you go – professor Nutt’s agenda is to legalise drugs and that, as we discover is a very bad thing according to the programme.
We then had a sound bite from Alan Johnson in Parliament which accuses Prof Nutt of undermining the government message on drugs. This is followed by a description of the classification system and how the government moved cannabis back to class B against the advice of the ACMD which David Nutt chaired. The programme states that Prof Nutt disagrees with the classification system, but denies he was actively campaigning, unless “telling the truth” is campaigning against government policy. He states how much more of a drug problem is caused by alcohol and that in worrying about the classification of cannabis the government has taken its eye of the alcohol problem. It described professor Nutt’s drug rankings published in the Lancet which put alcohol and tobacco about cannabis and then asked
But is he right?
At this point the programme descends into the usual badly informed claims we are only too used to. Parents who smoked a bit of cannabis in their youth don’t see anything wrong with their kids smoking it, but, we are told, as if it were an undeniable fact (which it isn’t)
But there’s a world of difference they recall from their past and the home grown, extra potent variety of today
The issue of potency and strength is one which this blog has often discussed (for example here and here), suffice it to say the issue is complicated and the historical data we have on it is patchy at best. What can be said with some degree of certainty (because I was there) is that young adults of the 70’s got very, very stoned on some wicked cannabis.
The programme takes a look at a large scale grow-op recently busted in Essex, cannabis production on an industrial scale. Now, we might have expected a discussion about how best to regulate this huge industry, or how prohibition has created a multimillion pound black market, but no. Instead the police view is given without any criticism. The programme stated now the grow industry has boomed over the past few years, but didn’t mention how import restrictions and eradication efforts in the former supply countries caused by prohibition caused by prohibition have created the business opportunity. This is despite the scientific adviser of LGC Forensics describing how
If we look back say 20 years ago, there was a reasonably stable cannabis scene where the majority of it used in the UK was actually cannabis resin with a certain amount of herbal cannabis imported from West Indies or Africa or in some cases from South East Asia, but we’ve seen a transition over the years where home cultivated cannabis started to appear…
So instead of an investigation into what market forces caused this change of supply, we’re told about “skunk” and how it is so much stronger, despite the AGC scientist telling us that the increase in potency has only been by a factor of two or three. That is an increase perhaps, but it’s not the huge increase alluded to earlier and is well within the variation of strengths seen in “traditional imported” cannabis as they call it. We are told a little about the change in THC/CBD levels and how this might be important, but again there is no questioning of the role of prohibition and the economic forces it has unleashed in brining this about, nor of the lack of control caused by prohibition that has allowed this to happen almost unnoticed.
The interviewer is allowed to sniff a big bag of “skunk” and asks
You can’t get high from the smell can you?
That about sums up the banality of this programme, but far worse was to come because next we are introduced to Debra Bell. Debra, of course, runs “Talking about cannabis“ and is NOT an expert in any aspect of cannabis, as a view of her website will demonstrate. But the programme gives her and her son Will’s views an equal status to those of Prof Nutt. Now there may be some truth in the basic claims made by Debra Bell in that she is basically warning of the fact that youngsters are using cannabis and that the age of use is dropping. As the programme stated, Will was using cannabis when he was a young teenager and he could get hold of it easily. But rather than ask some difficult questions as to why this is happening, which would have highlighted the failings of prohibition we are just told about how much stronger “skunk” is than old type cannabis.
In reality the case Debra Bell describes is very strong reason to properly control and regulate the cannabis trade because prohibition has indeed created a potentially damaging situation with the spill-over to young kids. But Debra is presented as being well motivated because she is an anti cannabis campaigner. It’s interesting to note that Debra Bell is given more airtime (2min 52secs) than to David Nutt’s initial interview (1min 40), although we do return to him at the end of the programme.
It was Will Bell who underlined how strong “skunk” is these days in the vox pop at the start of the programme, a comment, along with all his claims which was allowed to pass without examination. Instead, the programme asks
If the roots of the David Nutt affair lie in the government’s classification of cannabis to class B, Will’s story might make you wonder why cannabis was ever down graded to class C in the first place.
This was just another non-too subtle illustration of the agenda of this programme.
We are then given a potted history of what things were like in 2004 , how MP’s had owned up to smoking cannabis at university and that the Independent on Sunday had run a campaign to legalise the drug (actually it was a decriminalise campaign, a very different thing to legalise). This was accompanied by concerns that police resources were being tied up with arrests for small amounts of cannabis. The mood was, indeed, for law reform and that David Blukett, the then Home Secretary had made it clear to the ACMD that he was minded to reclassify cannabis to C.
What we didn’t get at this point was any discussion as to the worth of the reclassification or how that failed to meet consumers expectations. The move was presented as a loosening of the law, as if that were the same thing as a move toward legalisation or even decriminalisation, which of course, it wasn’t.
Then we are told that as soon as cannabis was downgraded, doubts began to surface including the emergence of the skunk panic. MP Gwyn Prosser is quoted outlining some cases of constituents who claimed skunk “wreaked havoc”, including one mother who’s some had smoked cannabis and developed schizophrenia. Again, no discussion of the need to regulate the supply was entered into, no discussion of the effects of prohibition, no discussion of the way people with mental illness use a lot of cannabis and certainly no discussion of the role of the press (including the ridiculous claims of the Independent on Sunday’s “apology”). Indeed, despite this and other cases of psychosis and cannabis use happening with cannabis as a class B, the assumption was still made – and not challenged – that keeping the class B law was the correct thing to have done.
So just 4 years after the move the C, the policy was reversed. The Home Office was quoted as saying the move back to B was in part the result of public concerns (as opposed to evidence) of the health risks posed by higher strength cannabis. Again, no criticism of this what so ever.
The presenter then points out that Prof Nutt claims cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco and believes the government ignored the scientific evidence, he then admits that “in some ways” the evidence bears him out, certainly far more people are killed by cigarettes and alcohol than cannabis. But, the programme then asks, is Prof Nutt downplaying the risks of cannabis, espeically the more potent strains?
Prof Robin Murray is then featured. Now, it’s worth pointing out that Robin has long campaigned on this issue and had early links with the National Drug Prevention Alliance and its campaign of the early 2000’s against cannabis law reform as this blog has already observed. But Robin is also on record as opposing the move to B as being “pointless”.
… research has shown that the risk of developing schizophrenia or psychotic symptoms is higher in those who use cannabis.
He makes a good case against heavy use but accepts that heavy cigarette smoking is more dangerous than heavy cannabis use. He then makes the point that adolescents are at a much higher risk.
Our evidence was that if you start smoking by age 18 then you’re about 1.5 times more likely to go psychotic by he time you’re 26, if you start by 15 you’re 4.5 time more likely.
He also draws on animal experiments which show the effects of THC on young brains is far more extreme than on adults. So prof Murray in fact makes a very strong case for a regulated supply with clear age limits, which he dresses up as an opposition to proper law reform.
Not only that, but Prof Murray is apparently about to publish a study which shows that high CBD cannabis – like we used to get before the war in drugs created the problem – is less harmful than so-called “Skunk” which is low in CBD.
It is important however to point out that even Prof Murray, well known for his position on cannabis and mental illness is now claiming that due to the rise of “skunk” 20% of schizophrenia which “might be attributed to cannabis” in his South London area, up from 7-15%. Serious as every case is, this is actually a very small number of people compared to the huge number of cannabis users and is actually down significantly on the 60% he was claiming only a few years ago. However, it is a good argument for regulating and controlling the supply side and is certainly not an argument for continued prohibition.
The programme than accepts that whether smoking cannabis causes schizophrenia is contentious – ie not proven. Whilst Prof Murray’s evidence suggests a “link” in south London, Prof Nutt’s evidence disagrees. He accepts that people at risk of schizophrenia might be at increased risk from using cannabis, but points out the strength of the effect is relatively small and there is research that indicates you would have to prevent 5000 young men using cannabis (the number is higher for women) using cannabis to prevent one case of schizophrenia. Across the whole country the incidence of schizophrenia is falling.
The programme than describes Prof Nutt’s personal project to discover a new and safer recreational drug to replace alcohol. David is on really dodgy ground with this to be honest and would be well advised to drop the whole idea, especially of going to the length of administering the drug (which hasn’t been licensed) to human volunteers.
The ACMD is in disarray as a result of David Nutt’s sacking, meanwhile he has announced plans to launch a new independent advisory group if the ACMD can’t be rescued.
This proposal was dismissed by the programme which ended by questioning Prof Nutt’s claims of relative harms and pointing out that any chance of the UK government acting on his advice are “remote”.
So there we go, another re-run of the shallow reporting we’ve grown so used to from the BBC on this issue. No questioning of the working of prohibition and it’s role in bringing about the problems it identifies, no questioning of present policy or the claims made by either the police or the likes of Debra Bell and certainly no question of the conclusions offered by Robin Murray.
Yet again, this programme has fallen well short of the intelligent investigating standards we have a right to expect from Radio 4.
11 users commented in " BBC Radio 4 – The Report – David Nutt and the future of the ACMD – a critique "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAccording to these documents released by Parliament – if you believe them – Nutt was sacked more because of his stance on ecstasy than anything else:
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_technology/s_t_misc_reported_papers_09_10.cfm
Thanks for that, a very interesting read and you could well be right. I actually saw them last night as it happens.
But cannabis is the drug issue that really excites people and hence drives media attention. After all it’s with cannabis that the drug war hype comes into conflict with so many people’s personal experiences.
The horse riding comparison is interesting but to be honest I’ve kept away from it because it’s outside the remit of this site, which is focused on cannabis only. But for what it’s worth I would say the comparison is reasonable, at least in principle.
It’s reasonable because we compare relative risks between different pastimes constantly. For example, in my real world life of work I have recently carried out a risk assessment where the risk of falling off a ladder was compared to the risk of electrocution. We do this because it puts things in perspective and gives us a sense of proportion.
So I would argue it is reasonable to compare the dangers of horse riding with the dangers of taking an E-pill and dancing like a loon for 12 hours as a result.
What you have to do of course is define how you measure the two risks and I don’t know the specifics of David Nutt’s study. But if it’s true that more people die or suffer serious injury through horse riding than raving (presumably on a people per hour basis or something) then horse riding is the more dangerous like it or not.
But if we were to be allowed to know this sort of thing the whole rational for the drug war becomes difficult to defend and the government is no doubt reluctant to allow such comparisons for precisely that reason.
So they shot the messenger.
Well the programme seems to have pleased no one which probably means -given it was only 30 minutes, that within the time scale it was reasonably balanced.
I thought the programme under represented the wide body of scientific opinion that does not agree with Professor Nutt.
Did the programme mention the views of the Nnational Director of Mental Health Professor Appleby? He was very strong on believing that cannabis needed to be re-classified to B when speaking at the ACMD hearing.
A major complaint about Nutt is not his personal views but his campaigning-crusading I say. Inappropriate in the Chairman, difficult even for an ordinary member of the ACMD. (Most members keep their own views relatively well suppressed).
Since his dismissal Nutt has misrepresented what happenned in the ACMD, for example he was stunned when it was pointed out to him on News 24 that the ACMD was not unanimous.
Although the ACMD voted for leaving cannabis at C, Nutt as Chairman should surely not have misrepresentd the debate as simply black or white? That is unscientific.
Fact is the ACMD is not the sole repository of expertise. Very many people thought the original downgrading was unwise. Governments do not often admit to big mistakes. On cannabis, the UK government has admitted that-without change of controlling party. Even David Cameron has changed his mind and said so to Adam Boulton on Sky last year. Cameron had been a non dissenting member of the Home Affirs Select Committee that suggested downgrading.
One point of fact where you are wrong in my opinion. You imply that the rise in home grow to dominate the market (with the added harm of low CBD cannabis) is a product of the enforcement regime, in the UK or elsewhere.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The UK Customs more or less stopped actively targetting the main cannabis suppliers at the end of 1999-as a deliberate decision.
SOCA later took over those investigation duties and has also not applied itself very hard. (That does not stop either organisation dealing with it if stumbled across).
Home grow grew to dominate as a reaction to poor quality imported “soap bar”. I would have thought you of all organisations would have understood that.
Home Grow also took over in the Netherlands-(Nederweit) way before the UK and took off even when there was plenty of imported cannabis available.
Users have made a choice, they prefer the strong THC hit and low CBD varieties-it has been consumer choice as main driver.
Government re-classified taking account of all views-not just the ACMD. The change was largely driven by the Health & Education lobbies in government. Government was cautious.
Professor Nutt moved from being an advisor on drug policy to an advocate for a specific policy and that, above all else, made his dismissal from service obligatory. To add to this, his advocacy is based on his own experiences and cannot be generalized for policy purposes. Cannabis is a potent neurotoxin and whether it is or is not safer than alcohol is irrelevant. They both are subject to abuse and, therefore, whatever we can do to prevent or reduce that abuse is worth doing. That would include not legalizing cannabis, a sure-fire way to keep abuse at minimal levels.
David
Well, I would agree that the programme represented the range of views that didn’t agree with Prof Nutt, but as just about the only scientist interviewed was Robin Murray, I don’t think you can really claim there was a wide degree of scientific views. Debra Bell, police officers and politicians don’t count as scientists.
I think an important point to make is that I think we both agree that moving cannabis to class C was a stupid thing to do, but for entirely different reasons. Moving to C made sense within the framework of the MoD act perhaps, but in terms of cannabis users it was pretty meaningless, as was the return to B. What was needed was real, meaningful law reform and we didn’t get it.
You wrote
>>
A major complaint about Nutt is not his personal views but his campaigning-crusading I say.
>>
Well, you are entitled to your opinion but I wouldn’t say Prof Nutt did any campaigning when he was in post. The results he came up with didn’t please politicians but so what? He was entitled to speak about his research which is all he did.
The vote of the ACMD was something like three against, with large majority for and certainly it was unanimous amongst the scientists. DO remember the ACMD has members from the police and other organisations who’s members represent the views of their organisations.
As regards the rise of so-called “skunk” and the decline of imported hash, you seem to brush over the effects of eradication policies in countries such as Morocco which were strongly encouraged by our government as a part of the global war on drugs.
What actually happened was indeed a huge drop in the quality of imported hash and “Soap bar” became a filthy product – indeed and UKCIA was warning people of this back in 1998.
Of course, as this blog has often mentioned disrupting the supply side is an aim of prohibition and a contaminated, low quality product is actually an indicator of “success”. The health effects of contamination such as smoking boot polish have never been a consideration.
It was no surprise then that consumers switched to the far better quality “skunk” when it became available. I personally doubt if that switch would have taken place had the import market not have been so degraded.
As a passing point, because cannabis is not a controlled drug, no-one in authority seems to have noticed the market change for nearly 10 years, that speaks volumes to be honest.
One point to make regarding the low CBD herbal cannabis which is that herbal cannabis is always low in CBD compared to traditional imported hash, it’s the nature of the beast. The type of cannabis used to make Moroccan hash is far too weak to use as herbal, which is why the more concentrated form of hash was made.
But to claim the emergence of so-called “skunk” was not attributable to the workings of prohibition is just not real world, David.
You wrote
>>
Users have made a choice, they prefer the strong THC hit and low CBD varieties-it has been consumer choice as main driver.
>>
Actually there is no choice, other than between low grade “solid” and (usually) better quality “green” for most people. Consumers naturally chose quality if they have a choice.
John:
Cannabis is not a “potent neurotoxin”, if it were there would be dead hippies all over the place. Do you really believe that prohibition is effective in reducing use? If it is, why is drug use in America so high? Do check your facts, please.
Derek
UKCIA
Sorry, you misunderstand, I did not brush over Morrocco-I just limited the length of my post. I can write at turgid length about varieties of cannabis and the market. I agree there has been more interdiction in Morrocco. I understand the international cannabis market well enough. With over 40 plus years of study I ought to.
The interdiction in Morocco has not stopped plenty of product coming out, it still comes out, some targetted on the UK but users, I say, are driving the market and actively choosing home grown herbal in preference-just as happened in Holland.
This is a substantial change from the 70s & 80s when there was sometimes a struggle to shift herbal, with high resistance from customers. do accept at that time resin tended to be higher quality with more from SW asia.
I agree there was not enough scientific view in the programme, Drummond & Ashton even Appleby maybe, (who led the charge for reclassification). Appleby should certainly have been included. Maybe he was told not to appear. The programme was NOT about the science though or even JUST about the debate around classification, it was about Nutt, his views, his behaviour, why he had gone and getting him to expose his persona and ideas. On that level the programme succeeded.
The programme makers varied their initial approach and gave a lot more time to Professor Nutt than originally intended.
Not really a mistake, he showed just how other wordly he is, by suggesting he might get invited back on the ACMD! Quite astonishing. He got his chance to make his points but self awareness is maybe not his strongest suit and his true colours showed through.
My analysis of Nutt and his behaviour is that there is a subtext which many commentators do not understand.
Nutt wants to invent a substitute for alcohol, he does not hide that ambition and has written about it. For any such scheme to get off the ground he needs to blur the distinction between legal and illegal drugs. Hence the need for his all encompassing harms index created by delphic analysis.
Of course government showed not the slightest interest in his pet index because down that route is legalisation in some form for all drugs, with increased consumption and increased total personal & social harm. Nutt got more and more exasperated and acted unwisely.
Any substitute for alcohol that got accepted e.g. like “Soma” in Brave New World, would make the inventor and the companies making it (Nutt’s pharmaceutical friends presumably) enormous wealth. So I put a lot of Nutt’s erratic behaviour down to that, including his wish for drug classification to be decided by a small group of scientists with independence like the Bank of England.
This is cranky stuff, not in the real world. Because, in suggesting that, he disparages all the hard work and views of all his other colleagues on the ACMD as irrelevant.
Nutt, I say, pretends to a spurious accuracy about the classification of any particular drug in what are simply three broad groupings selected as (mainly) signals about enforcement.
He dismisses the views of the public as expressed through the ballott box, he sidelines the work of any social scientists or anyone else with a view. Plainly no one matters except Nutt and a few close mates.
Hmm tis a shame to have these ill-formated and stanced programs being played, angers me. Poor Proff nutt, i think the whole thing is very fucked up.
Quickly on the change of consumer demand from hash to grass David. You do accept that when resin was of a high quality it was preferred to herbal.
I really think you need to ponder a little on the effects of prohibition in creating the move to “home grown” and “skunk”. After all it is surely no coincidence that the drop in quality happened as the eradication efforts were stepped up and that both coincided with the emergence of the UK “skunk” industry?
Also, if it’s true (and it is only a theory) that high THC ratios are more dangerous to mental health, then causing this change of market share would seem to have been an unwise thing to do really.
As regards the basic case made by Prof Nutt however it does seem illogical to apply two polar opposite policies toward drugs as we do with alcohol and cannabis and expect them both to achieve the same end. I would also argue strongly that alcohol has a very, very dark side which frankly eclipses anything cannabis can do for the vast majority of users and the wider society.
But in addition I would argue that if we are to compare alcohol and cannabis harms, then we should compare illegal cannabis with moonshine supplied by the mob.
Only a fool would, I suspect, argue for the prohibition of alcohol. Why you would expect the same irresponsible regime to work for other drugs is beyond me.
As regards the democratic view on legalisation David, I would suggest that if we were allowed a really informed debate you might not like the outcome.
1. “…down that route is legalisation in some form for all drugs, with increased consumption and increased total personal & social harm.”
Does this writer believe that legalisation of cannabis will lead to “increased consumption” of drugs? Or is he one of those who would prefer it so, because they are co-opted in some way by the current regime based on protecting the tobackgo interest.
Answer: legalisation of cannabis will de facto co-legalize anti-overdose one-hitters, e-cigarettes with THC in the cartridge, and vapourisers, now rare because owners risk arrest and accusations of cannabis use. It will thus reduce “heavy” consumption via the easy-to-hide paper overdose. Advocates and educators will speedily traverse the planet converting everyone from “drugs” to the newly legal cannabis moderate-serving formats.
2. Why the fear of “Skunk” (one-toke herb)?
If every person, including those underage, were encouraged or able to use a one-toke utensil, limiting the serving size to 25-mg., it would be final goettherdaemmerung for the cash cow of the hot burning overdose industry, 700-mg. $igarettes. (A quick check of some website reveals that H.M. Government receives GBP10,000,000,000 a year in tax revenue from sale of nicotine $igarettes.) Now comes a new alternative to tobackgo– cannabis– so rich and powerful that it gives smokers an option– and economic incentive– to avoid the hot-burning “joint” or “spliff”, convert to using a 25-mg. utensil, omit extra tokes and massively reduce exposure to carbon monoxide and other toxins.
“Problem”: many cannabis users, once competent to operate the low-dosage devices, will also shift their tobackgo use (if any) away from the $igarette to such utensils.
From a drug problem reduction point of view, you would think they would want this. But from a “$ell the most tobackgo” point of view (shared, as we see, by the government) it’s a total (well-deserved) disaster.
H.M. Govt. must now accent the positive and start helping create green jobs for soon-to-be-former-tobackgo-industry-employees.
I mustn’t speak on behalf of David Raynes, he can make his own case, as he has done for many years as a leading light in the prohibition campaign the “National drug prevention alliance”.
I suspect though that he would not see any value in safer use campaigns, nor would he accept that use could ever be anything other than “abuse”, much less would he accept prohibition has any responsibility for the mess we see around us.
He may like to correct me if I’m wrong and is free to do so.
Has anyone who is afraid of Skunk and the super potent new cannabis varieties actually gone out to buy what is available. What people usually get is a product that is hardly dry, tastes awful to smoke, is underweight (1/16th of an ounce is sold as 1/8th for example), often has a metalic aftertaste from contaminants and most importantly does not get you high. Heavily dilute this with tobacco (as most users do) and it is hard to see where the cannabis danger is.
If these super strong strains are available then they are certainly not readily available to most so it is hard to see where the extra harm claimed is coming from (maybe smoking tobacco without a filter and holding it you lungs for as long as possible does it ?). We never see any figures for what is available it is always presumed that the very best quality (potency) is available to children. In fact anyone willing to sell to children will often have no qualms about selling the poorest quality product since children have no recourse to complain and don’t really know what to look for. In fact with most people so long as what they buy is green and smells of rotting plant matter they are happy. If this is not the case and prohibition really is consistently delivering higher potency then this is must be a sign that it is not working (prohibition measures it’s success on reducing quality and availability)
So if these bad effects are happening then they must be attributed to the quality of product available and how it is used. Most of the characteristics of what is available are a consequence of prohibition (contamination, poor quality, poor production methods, lack of supply) not the state of the art in cannabis potency (regardless of how much you think this has changed over the years). The challenge must be for anyone who claims that super strong cannabis is causing serious harm to prove that is what people are actually buying on the street. When talking to people (young and old) who buy cannabis regularly I see no evidence that the market is saturated with very high quality – if anything the quality is falling year by year and the price is going up. As the quality (not just the potency) falls so the potential for real harm increases. More prohibition will deliver more of the same whether you believe it is high potency or poor quality that does the harm.
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